


Their Song

by howelleheir



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Drinking, M/M, Minor Character Death, Oneshot, POV Sam Wilson, Past Riley/Sam Wilson, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 19:05:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6483562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howelleheir/pseuds/howelleheir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t planes or fireworks or backfiring trucks that made him feel sick and weak, that made his heart pound so hard he could feel it from his throat to his belly. It was little things, stupid things, like the smell of CK One and menthol smoke, or someone touching the back of his neck, or hearing their song.</p><p>Set immediately pre-TWS.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Their Song

**Author's Note:**

> Did you notice all those wine bottles in Sam's house in TWS? I did. This was the result.

He doesn’t flinch when a plane flies too low over his house. He used to, but now it’s just a little itch at the base of his skull, so subtle that sometimes he doesn’t even notice it. Tonight, he _does_ notice it, so he goes to the cooler and pulls out a bottle - something syrupy and fortified, strong enough to nip the tightness in his chest in the bud. He puts his playlist on shuffle and pours himself a generous glass.

“Slow down,” he says to the empty room when he drains it before the first song is over. Sometimes, if he reminds himself out loud, it works. He pours another glass, and makes it last an hour while he reads a worn paperback.

Then that song comes on. Just drums and one deep note on the intro, but he knows it from that first low hit on the cymbal, and flinches hard, mouth tight, and eyes pressed shut.

 _Don’t skip it_ , he thinks, taking in one long, slow breath. _Exposure is good. Every time you listen to it, it hurts a little less._

He lets out a measured exhale and pours another glass. This one is gone by before the midway point of the song, and he drains the last of the bottle into his empty glass, his hand a little unsteady.

He thinks, _One more to take the edge off._

He thinks, _I need this._

He thinks, _It’s okay. I don’t drink hard liquor._

He thinks, _It’s okay. I don’t drink to get drunk._

He thinks, _It’s okay. I don’t drink on the job._

He thinks, _It’s okay. I’ll make this one last._

It wasn’t planes or fireworks or backfiring trucks that made him feel sick and weak, that made his heart pound so hard he could feel it from his throat to his belly. It was little things, stupid things, like the smell of CK One and menthol smoke, or someone touching the back of his neck, or hearing their song. All the stuff that reminded him of Riley. That reminded him of Riley on the last day he ever saw him. That reminded him that Riley was gone. That reminded him of Riley, just behind him, talking shit over the headset to keep them both calm as they swerved to avoid fire, then a low rumble and the air being ripped apart with a sound so loud he felt it more than heard it, rippling in his bones and filling his head so full he thought it might burst, thinking he was hit, realizing he wasn’t, and looking over his shoulder and finding nothing but smoke.

He thinks, _Stop. Focus on something else. Anything else._

He picks up the book in his left hand, although his glass doesn’t leave his right. His head is swimming, and he keeps zoning out, not processing any of what he’s reading, going back, starting the paragraph again.

 

> _Vimes had never known..._
> 
> _Vimes had never known his father. His mum..._
> 
> _His mum told him that the man..._
> 
> _His mum told him that the man had been run over by a cart, but..._
> 
> _His mum told him that the man had been run over by a cart, but Vimes suspected..._
> 
> _...but Vimes suspected that if this were true at all, then it was..._
> 
> _...but Vimes suspected that if this were true at all, then it was probably a brewer's cart, which had_ _'run him over' a bit at a time for years_.

 

 _Sound familiar?_ says a voice in his head.

 _You know what this is,_ it says.

 _Seen it a hundred times_ , it says.

 _Doesn’t count as not turning the song off if you turn yourself off instead,_ it says.

He sighs and gives up on the book, tossing it down on the coffee table and going back to the kitchen. He’ll feel better with something on his stomach.

After rifling through the cabinets, fridge, and freezer, the _something_ he returns with happens to be a bottle of Riesling. He never remembers finishing it.

 

He wakes up, having apparently managed to make it to his bed and strip down, feeling like he’s only slept a few minutes. The clock tells him it’s been about five hours since his second glass of Riesling - his last coherent memory. The room is still doing figure eights around him. He takes in a heavy breath. He can’t get enough air.

He wakes again two hours later. He’s sweating and shivering, and his skin feels raw. As he sits up, his mouth, which had felt full of sawdust moments before, suddenly floods with thin, bitter saliva. He barely makes it to the toilet in time, most of the contents of his stomach spilling out into the water before he can even get to his knees. Acid and bile and sickly sugar.

He’s shaking so bad he can barely stand, so he sits in the shower with the water beating against his skin until he can muster the energy to reach the soap and a washcloth. By the time he’s scrubbed down his upper half, his legs are steady enough to stand on, so he finishes the shower on his feet, hops out, towels off, and swallows four Motrin. If he goes back to bed now, he’ll just feel worse later. He pulls on a pair of shorts and an undershirt while his coffee’s brewing and manages to choke down two slices of dry toast with it in spite of his roiling gut.

He tells himself what he’d tell someone in the group:

_Try to process. Think about why it happened. Don’t make excuses. Don’t beat yourself up. Just think about why and try to plan for next time. What set it off this time?_

The song. It’s one of several that’s just intrinsically tied to Riley.

_So what are you going to do?_

He’s going get out of the house, be around people. He’s going to share that damn song with the next person he talks to. The next ten or twenty people if he has to. Whoever it is, he’s going to make them listen to it, and then it won’t be his and Riley’s song anymore. It’ll be _theirs_ , and he can make new memories and slip them between the smooth falsetto and the clean guitar and hissing cymbals and piano and sax and synth, and maybe, just maybe, he won’t flinch at it anymore.

He pulls on a sweatshirt that warms his cold, aching joints and doesn’t make his skin recoil, laces up his running shoes and drags himself out the door. It’s the last thing he wants to do right now, and every part of his body is protesting even leaving the house, but he knows he’ll feel better after a good run.

**Author's Note:**

> The book was Snuff by Terry Pratchett, and the song, obviously, was Trouble Man.
> 
> I'm on Tumblr as MostlyHydraTrash, if you want to follow me for the mental breakdowns that lead to writing these things.


End file.
